Word Fulfilled, The (14 page)

Eighteen

Nineveh, the Temple Plaza

Fifteenth Day of Simanu

amin eased himself onto the steps of Nabu’s temple. Today he would neither lurk in the shadows, nor peek around corners. He didn’t care if he was observed. This was his last day in Nineveh.

His desire to remain had not subsided, although with all that had happened at the Temple of Ishtar, he wasn’t sure why. His uncle hadn’t questioned him again about his renewed interest in Nineveh. He didn’t want to chance the issue being raised again, so he abandoned the strategy of asking to stay longer, or return later.

Uncle Hiram was apologetic that he could only offer Jamin a paltry amount for his summer’s work. Jamin refused the payment. It was his pleasure to help. He had learned much about the trade, and his time in Nineveh had been interesting. It had also frustrated him, but he didn’t share that sentiment with his uncle. His mind was not on Aššûr this morning. His mind was where it spent most of its time. On the girl.

Jamin had not returned to Nabu’s temple since he’d seen her in the blue tunic of a
naditu
. The ache in his stomach returned with every remembrance of the sight. Their disastrous first encounter should have dampened his feelings, even drowned them. He fancied the sting of her slaps still on his cheeks. Jamin ben Obadiah—a son of Abraham, chosen of the One True God—slapped by a heathen temple harlot! His forehead burned at the memory. But so did his heart. His desire, his concern, his—could it be called love?—for the young girl had not abated. Quite the contrary.

Why did she vex him so? She was pagan, hot-tempered, lacked common sense, stubborn . . . and probably a lot of other things. What was there to commend her? Absolutely nothing. Yet his feelings for her only grew. It was as though he was being pushed toward her, rather than pulled by her.

So here he sat, on the steps of Nabu’s temple, in plain sight. And he didn’t care. There was no movement between the columns yet, but Jamin was early. He wanted to be there when she emerged. He wanted to see her. He wanted her to see him.

Jamin shook off his disjointed thoughts and raised his eyes from the street. He was startled to see the steps of Ishtar’s temple alive with white tunics. The
ishtaritu
initiates had appeared while he pondered. They clustered on the steps in small groups, as always. None of them looked his way, although certainly they’d seen him. More flashes of white, and some blue, showed from the shadows behind the columns. He searched the far end of the steps where she normally sat alone, but the space was empty.

Jamin heard cloth rustle, but before he could turn his head, someone settled onto the stairs beside him. He turned his head.

Uncle Hiram!

Hiram just looked ahead at the scene across the street.

“What are . . . how did you know—” Jamin stammered.

His uncle smiled. “Ours is a close community, Jamin. You’ve not been overly discrete.”

Jamin reddened. “Then . . . how long have you known?”

“That’s not important.” Hiram looked back across the street. “Do you have a favorite?”

His nephew’s jaw tightened despite his shock. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not all right. You don’t understand. I have not—”

“Calm yourself, Nephew. I know you haven’t partaken.” Hiram turned his head toward Jamin, a trace of the good-natured smile still on his lips.

Jamin creased his brow. “How can you be sure?”

“I would know.”

Jamin’s puzzlement was evident.

Hiram locked eyes with him. “There’s a countenance. I’m not sure I can describe it. A man who resolves to defer his desire until the marriage bed reveals his heart in other ways, other words and deeds.” He patted his nephew on the shoulder. “And a violation of that intent is quickly betrayed.”

Jamin looked down and struggled for the words to respond. After an awkward moment, he raised his eyes to meet his uncle’s. “I question whether that bed will ever be mine.”

“So there is a favorite.” His uncle nodded across the street.

Jamin shook his head. “She shouldn’t be there. I’ve . . . spoken to her. There’s something different . . . I don’t know.” He clenched his fist. “She shouldn’t be there.”

He looked back across the street. The last of the
ishtaritu
had disappeared between the columns. He scanned the porch. It was empty.

Hiram laid his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “God knows the heart, Jamin.”

 
“What do you mean?”

“Even the heart of a pagan. If there really is something different, there is always hope, no?”

“I don’t know.” He heaved another sigh. “I just don’t know.”

“Come. Time to go.” Hiram pushed to his feet. He extended a hand to his nephew.

Jamin clasped his uncle’s wrist and stood. He cast another look at the massive Temple of Ishtar. He sensed the goddess was gloating and daring him to wrest the treasure of his heart from her cold stone bosom.

His uncle’s words rose again in his mind.
“Always hope, no?”

I’m not so sure.

Hulalitu watched the two men descend the steps of Nabu’s temple and turn up the road. She glared at them from behind her pillar until they turned a corner out of sight. Their voices had carried in the crisp morning air.

“So, ‘Jamin,’ is it?” Her hoarse voice grated against the smooth stone of the column. “We shall see what becomes of Jamin.”

Lll

The early morning light had just broken over the roof as Jamin bade his aunt and uncle farewell. He threw his small parcel of belongings over his shoulder and accepted a pouch with some morsels of food from his aunt. He planted a kiss on her cheek, where a tear moistened his lips.

“Shalom
, my nephew. You’ll be careful. The Idiqlat is fickle.” Her nasal twang was gone, replaced by a husky sniffle.

“I will, Aunt Rizpah.” Jamin smiled. “I’ll pass your love to my family. Perhaps I can return sooner, rather than later.” He kissed her other cheek.
“Shalom
.”

He gripped his uncle’s wrist, looked into the older man’s eyes, and nodded. They needed no words.

He strode down the alleyway and turned onto the road that led to the footbridge over the Tabiltu River. His uncle had arranged passage for him on the small boat of a friend heading downriver to Kal
ḫ
u.

Jamin didn’t look at the temple as he passed.

Nineteen

The Arabian Desert

Nineteenth Day of Simanu

he last six days of the journey to Aššûr blurred together, as so many days had before them. Deprived of his camel, Jonah was forced to walk. Although there were extra camels laden with goods, none of the drivers offered to replace his mount. They kept their distance and eyed the Hebrew with distrust. The loss of their leader due to Jonah’s mishap, paired with the mystery of the disappearing snake, placed him just below pariah on the social scale. He didn’t care. Nor was he surprised to learn that he didn’t miss their company. Instead, monotony became his travel companion.

The terrain was monotonous, the sky monotonous—and that was all there was to see. Day after day, just sand and the glare of the sun. Jonah retreated into his thoughts for refuge from the bleakness that surrounded him. He plodded along, allowing each foot its own freedom in the winless race to Aššûr. Gradually, his sluggish brain painted a scrim of northern Israel’s vivid green over the dull taupe of the Arabian Desert. The lush Jezreel Valley nudged aside the barren wasteland in his mind’s eye, and the Kishon River’s springtime waters cooled his imagination. For hours of blessed delusion, he was back on his donkey cart, while his beloved Jezebel plodded a gentle pace along the familiar trails around Gath-hepher. Faint recollections of his mother’s cook fire wafted ribbons of ethereal aroma around his brain and probed his inner senses with memories of roasted lamb and hot flatbread.

When sunset suspended the day’s trek and interrupted his daydreams, he found himself resentful. He preferred the bliss of his mind’s day wanderings to the stark and uncontrollable invasion of night dreams. So the cycle continued. Day after nameless day.

Yesterday there appeared out of nowhere a narrow riverbed. The river was dry, so it presented no obstacle to their progress. The caravan crawled through the cleft in the landscape and left it behind with little memory of its existence. Jonah never noticed the dry ford, for it, too, was obscured behind his blessed daydreams.

This morning, after the second thong on his sandal snapped both its binding and his thoughts, irritation took over. The knot he tied after the first break had rubbed a raw spot on his ankle, which now festered in the heat. He knelt to examine the damage, only to get kneed into the dust by the camel behind him. Rather than apologize, the driver just glared at Jonah and prodded his animal onward.

As he trudged mindlessly along the trail, Jonah’s shadow crept further in front of him, stretched by a tired sun draining the last of its light onto the western horizon. His shadow climbed the rump of the camel ten paces in front of him and had just touched the back of its driver, when the caravan began to ascend a gentle incline. The subtle change in stride roused him from his trance.

The train of animals topped the rise and halted. Jonah limped toward the front of the group, then stopped in wonder at the sight spread before him. A vast river—the Idiqlat, he presumed—snaked through a low plain along a carpet of vegetation, the first foliage he had seen in days. The verdant green, even subdued as it was in the shadows of the fading day, hurt his eyes, such was its contrast to the desert grays and browns that had dulled his senses for so long. To the south a small tributary converged with the great river and nurtured a vast field of reeds, rushes, and low brush between itself and the larger waterway. To the north, the buildings of a great city gleamed in the late afternoon light. They shone a vibrant white, not yet grayed by the evening shadows that encroached from the western ridgeline. On the outskirts of the city, disciplined rows of orchards, vineyards, and other crops, framed with irrigation trenches, melded in with the wild vegetation along the riverbanks.

Jonah devoured the sight. He was unable to break his stare even when the caravan began its trek down the slope toward the city. A rough nudge from the cargo bag on a passing camel broke his stupor, and he fell into step behind the beast, though he still craned his neck for another view of a civilization he almost forgot existed.

The caravan reached the city gates as the evening’s shadows topped the parapets. The lead driver signaled for a halt. They would spend the night outside the city, but in the protection of its proximity. Although Jonah would part company with the caravan here in search of transport upriver to Nineveh, he decided to remain in familiar company for one last night. Tomorrow would be soon enough to explore the city on the final leg of his journey.

Lll

Jamin stepped off the
quppu
onto the sandy bank of the Idiqlat River, his small bag of belongings slung over his shoulder. He glanced up at the familiar Temple of Ashur, which shone its brilliance in the waning rays of sunlight, a grand reminder of the city’s former prominence as the Assyrian capital. Although King Ashur-nasirpal had relocated the political capital to Kal
ḫ
u seventy-five years earlier, the great structure dedicated to the nation’s patron god ensured the spiritual capital would remain in Aššûr. The massive edifice dwarfed the promontory on which it stood, and bowed only to the shadow of a lofty ziggurat that loomed a short distance to the southwest. The stepped tower provided Ashur a convenient avenue to descend to the city at his pleasure, as similar ziggurats across Assyria did for their gods and goddesses. There, the principal gods of the
Igigi
and lesser deities of the
Anunnaku
pantheons would find ample stores of sustenance, gathered and dedicated to them by the humans they had created from the clay of the Mesopotamian delta for just that purpose.

Jamin ignored the heathen temple. He had suffered his fill of such places in Nineveh, and his heart still ached. It rankled him that so much wealth and grandeur were dedicated to these idols. These were the weakness—indeed, the downfall—of any heathen nation, no matter how great it might be among men. He knew it was only a matter of time before Assyria would collapse into rubble along with the shrines of its impotent gods. Such was the fortune of those who put their trust in wood and stone.

The journey downstream from Nineveh should have taken a little over two days, half the time it took to ply the river upstream. There was an unexpected delay in Kal
ḫ
u, though, where the boat owner put in to repair a persistent leak. As his fare for passage, Jamin was to help with steerage, but most of the time he just bailed water from the narrow, curved bow. Although he was anxious to get home, he was grateful to have the seam patched and get some relief from the back-bending chore of sloshing water out of the prow.

The prolonged journey did give Jamin more time to think. It also allowed returning to Nineveh to grow from a niggling idea to a full-fledged urge. The next step would be obsession, and he knew he wasn’t far from it. But what would he say to his parents? What reason would he give to leave again so soon? He was old enough to be on his own. Surely he didn’t need their permission. Still, their blessing was important to him, and he knew they would never bless the reason for the urge—all right, now it was an obsession. He sighed and shook his head as he made his way along the familiar streets to the Jewish enclave.

“Shalom
, Son! We’ve missed you!” Judith pushed to her tiptoes and hugged her son. She planted a big kiss on his cheek.

Jamin smiled and reddened at the attention.
“Shalom
, Mother. You are well, I trust?”

Obadiah grasped his son’s wrist.
“Shalom
, Jamin. Yes, we are well.”

His mother beamed at him. “Supper will be ready soon. We weren’t sure what day to expect you. This is perfect. Tomorrow we celebrate your father’s birthday.”

Obadiah raised an eyebrow at his wife. “Celebrate? We talked about this.”

She smiled sweetly. “Yes, we did.”

Jamin laughed. “I remembered your birthday, Father. I wanted to be home in time. It’s good I left Nineveh early, though. We had to put in at Kal
ḫ
u for repairs. I was afraid I’d miss it.”

“Give me your bag. Is there much to be cleaned or mended?” She tugged at the tie string and peered into the musty sack.

“I cleaned everything before I left Nineveh, but I’m afraid the boat was dirty.”

“No matter.” His mother touched his cheek. “It’s wonderful you’re finally home.”

Jamin swallowed and forced another smile. His resolve to broach the subject of returning to Nineveh began to melt in the glow of his mother’s adoring eyes.

Obadiah pulled his son aside while Judith dumped the contents of the bag in the corner of the room. “So, how are Hiram and Rizpah?”

“I’m sorry, Father, I should’ve told you. They’re doing very well. They send their love.”

“And did you learn much of their trade?”

“I learned a great deal in Nineveh.”
About a lot of things.
Jamin averted his eyes, fearful they might betray his thoughts.

Obadiah cocked his head. “A great deal, eh?”

Jamin’s cheeks tinged pink. He never could get anything by his father; he should know better by now than to try. “You know, about their craft, yes—but also about the community, the city. Nineveh is growing. Getting bigger . . . a lot of building . . . and things. There is much to learn . . . about Nineveh.” He rolled his eyes inwardly at his rambling.

Obadiah smiled. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“Talk about why your face is the color of the sky at sunset and your forehead glistens like a spider’s web with the dew of dawn?”

“I hurried from the river to get home. I guess I’m a little overheated.” Jamin tried to smile and did it poorly.

“Jamin, I’m your father.”

Jamin’s shoulders slumped, and his gaze dropped to his feet. His words rolled out on a heavy sigh. “Why can I never get a thought past you?”

Obadiah smiled again. “I just told you why. I’m your father.” He glanced toward his wife. “Let’s go outside.”

The two men stepped through the door, chased by Judith’s exhortation not to go far. Supper was nearly ready.

His father’s opening deflated Jamin’s chest. “What’s her name?”

“Wha—who?”

Obadiah struggled to stifle a laugh. He failed.

Jamin bristled. “What’s so funny?”

The elder man sniffed back another chortle, and his eyes glistened. “Son, it’s all over your face. You want to go back, don’t you?”

Jamin put both hands on his hips. “How can you know? Maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe I’m just . . . maybe it really is just the heat. Maybe—”

Obadiah brought the back of his hand to his mouth to block another laugh. He slapped Jamin on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Son. It happens to the best of us.” The next chuckle escaped before he could get his hand back up.

“It’s not funny!”

Obadiah forced a straight face and tried to blink away the moisture in his eyes. “All right, all right. No need to get upset.”

Jamin drew himself up. “Maybe it’s not a girl at all.”

Obadiah tilted his head, and the corners of his mouth quivered involuntarily.

“All right!” Jamin flailed his hands. “It’s a girl! Are you happy now?”

Obadiah bent double, and the guffaws now poured out unrestrained.

Jamin narrowed his eyes. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Sorry.” His father gasped for breath and raised his hands to signal a truce.